


Snare

by SoDoRoses (FairyChess)



Series: LAOFT Extras [126]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, WE know its gets better but this ends on a SUPER downer note, decomposition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:35:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28316112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FairyChess/pseuds/SoDoRoses
Summary: Patton makes a new friend.And what a tragic  thing it is.
Relationships: Morality | Patton Sanders & Original Character(s)
Series: LAOFT Extras [126]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1365505
Comments: 14
Kudos: 178





	Snare

**Author's Note:**

> takes place shortly after tying to heal a burn victim by drowning them
> 
> thank you to my beta @trivia-goddess for being the first person to properly join me in the crying pit

There were few things Patton had looked forward to more than turning sixteen.

He could go see Logan and Roman _whenever_ he wanted now, not limited by his bike and his asthma or the fact that he wasn’t allowed to go as far as Roman’s house, mostly because Roman’s house was so wonky it could be as far as ten or fifteen miles on a bad day, and his parents didn’t want him to take the risk on his bike.

But his dad’s old truck had lifted all of that, and Patton had spent weeks elated with his newfound freedom.

Especially when Logan had been set free. That had tipped it over right into euphoria, the feeling that things were finally going right for all of them.

And then that freedom had been snatched right away again.

It had kind of taken all the wind out of Patton’s sails about the truck. He tried to muster up the same enthusiasm he’d had before, but it just wouldn’t come.

Patton had heard the story of the night the Sanders had kept Logan probably a dozen times, but the faery woman had always simply seemed like a part of the story. The idea that she was really _real_ , and still hurting Logan, still keeping him trapped - it made Patton’s stomach twist horribly.

But there was one benefit to the truck that hadn’t been dimmed.

It had been harder to go to the graveyard on his bike, so far from his house and the asthma limiting him, and trying to spend most of those trips with Logan and Roman.

But he hated feeling like he was neglecting his quieter friends, and now Patton could see them almost whenever he wanted.

And it was so peaceful there. Patton could spend hours sometimes leaning against Mrs. Fischer’s grave, imagining her soft, nudging presence, teasing him for sleeping or listening intently to his stories.

It wasn’t real, of course, but it was nice to pretend that he really was keeping her (and the other residents, of course, but Mrs. Fischer was his favorite, not that he’d ever say) company.

But there was no greeting silence, no welcome, today.

Patton knew something was wrong as soon as he pulled into the parking lot. An edge of _wrong_ and _too_ _much_ to the quiet, something tense and panicking.

Slowly, he unbuckled his belt and climbed out of the car.

It grew heavier as he stepped into the rows of headstones – he felt watched, and more than that he felt _judged_ , something expectant and _waiting._

Swallowing, Patton greeted them all just the same as every day, but for the slightest shake to his voice. He followed the gravel paths all the way to the back, to Mrs. Fischer right up next to the church, and by the time he got there his heart was like thunderclaps in his ears.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Fischer,”

There was something _sharp_ , acrid, in the air. It felt _scared_ , but Patton couldn’t tell if it was his own anxiety clawing its way out of him into the air.

There was a sudden, quiet noise – if Patton hadn’t been listening intently for anything out of place, he would have heard it. It came from just behind the headstone, and Patton thought briefly, hysterically of zombies and resisted the urge to smack himself.

Cautiously, he stepped forward and peeked over the headstone.

A small, horrified noise escaped him, and the rabbit curled behind the headstone flailed wildly – but it clearly wasn’t going _anywhere_.

“ _Oh,_ ” said Patton miserably, “Oh you poor _thing_ , what _happened_ -”

Patton’s first thought was that it may have gotten hit by a car, and crawled from the street through the graveyard to hide. But when he looked closer, his stomach turned – the horrible straightness of the cuts, the even spacing, the _precision_.

Someone had _done_ this. Maybe a fae with a streak of cruelty or a particularly awful human but someone, someone horrible and cruel and _terrible_ had hurt this poor rabbit and then just _left_ it, cut and bleeding and too hurt to even run from Patton when it was clearly petrified.

“It’s okay,” said Patton, speaking softly and painstakingly making his way around the headstone as slow as possible, “It’s okay little buddy.”

He reached out carefully, barely brushing the rabbit’s fur, and the rabbit flailed again, eyes rolling wildly and little chest puffing with panicked breaths but still too hurt to run. Patton desperately hummed a soothing tune, a nonsense lullaby Ms. Gage sang sometimes, and the rabbit just barely calmed.

“It’ll be okay,” said Patton, “I’m gonna take you to the vet and everything is gonna be just fine, little bunny, don’t worry,”

The rabbit calmed further, and Patton sighed a little in relief. He gingerly slipped his hands under the rabbit’s body and lifted it into his arms.

The rabbit didn’t fight him, seemingly calmed by the song, and Patton cradled him in the crook of his elbow. The rabbit was still.

Too still.

Patton’s heart leapt into his throat.

No. no, no, no-

The rabbit wasn’t calm because of the song, the rabbit was _dying_ -

“Hey!” said Patton, his voice brittle with false brightness, “Hey, hey, little buddy, little bunny buddy, hey, hello-”

Patton accidentally jostled him a little in his quest to look at the rabbits face, but the rabbit barely twitched – his breath was no longer quick and frightened, but slow and barely moving at all, and Patton didn’t know when he’d started crying but his vision was blurring and his face was wet with fat, hot tears.

“No, nonono,” he croaked, “It’s gonna be okay, it’ll be okay, please Mr. Bunny, don’t die-”

The rabbit gave a full-body _flinch_ , like Patton had struck it, and began to breathe again.

Patton’s blood turned to ice. He felt like his heart had frozen solid and still in his chest.

The rabbit kept breathing – Patton’s arms were smeared with blood, and so was the rabbit’s mouth, and it was limp and feebly struggling but still _breathing_ in spite of it all and Patton knew, without a moment’s doubt, that he had done it.

Trembling, Patton stared down at the rabbit in his arms, something fragile sparking to life in his chest.

“Get- get better,” said Patton, voice barely audible.

The rabbit gave another of those shuddering flinches, and Patton winced – but it’s eyes brightened.

It looked at him.

 _Help_ , he could almost hear, _Please help me._

Patton was shaking terribly now, and his head felt stuffed with cotton, everything muffled and panicked. He wracked his brain – what to say? He’d never done this on purpose. Patton didn’t speak in orders unless something had gone terribly, _awfully_ wrong most days, what did he need to _tell_ the rabbit-

“Okay,” he breathed, “Okay, okay, I can- I can help. I can fix this. I can help you.”

Swallowing, Patton forced the word out around the lump in his throat.

“Heal.”

It was slow, at first- but faster than “get better” had been, and the slashes on the rabbit’s skin began to knit back together like the world’s most nauseating zippers.

But working. It was working. Patton was, for once, fixing something instead of breaking it, the first time it had ever been a gift rather than a curse, and he let out a quiet, slightly hysterical laugh.

“Heal,” he said again, shushing the rabbit through the flinch, and kept shushing and repeating the word for the long minutes until the rabbit lay in his arms, whole. Unhurt. _Healed,_ by _Patton,_ Patton’s voice and curse.

He laughed again, wilder, and the rabbit flailed in his grip. Startled, he loosened his hold and the rabbit took the opening, lunging out of his arms and taking off like a shot into the woods on its perfectly healed little legs.

Collapsing against Mrs. Fischer’s grave, Patton tried to calm through the numb shaking of his hands and the shuddering of his breath, as deep and even as he could manage until he felt calm but drained, leaning his whole weight against the headstone.

Patton imagined Mrs. Fischer must be worried, asking if he was okay.

“I’m fine,” he said, voice thin, patting the headstone gently like he might have her hand if she was real and alive, “I’m okay. I did-”

He laughed a third, final time, his eyes spilling over with tears.

“I did _good,_ ” he croaked, “I did a good thing. I helped,”

On his most creative days, Patton could almost hear her, and today he could imagine her gentle agreement. That she might be proud.

Leaning his forehead to the cold stone, relieved and elated, Patton cried.

—

Patton didn’t tell anyone.

He thought he would, eventually, but it was so new and felt so tender and fragile, this shimmering new knowledge that his voice could _help_ instead of _hurt,_ that maybe, finally, it didn’t always have to be a curse. He had to get used to it, first. He held his new hope against his chest, cradling it like a newborn bird and wondering at it.

Miraculously, Patton had managed to get home and changed and clean the blood from his clothes without anyone the wiser. He was too nervous to be really _excited_ , but he found himself occasionally touching his throat with his fingertips, letting out cautious hums and allowing himself to think that maybe, it was a little bit of a pretty sound.

If Logan and Roman noticed the slightest extra bounce in his step, they said nothing – he caught the occasional curious, indulgent smile, and Patton returned every one with a grin he felt like he could hardly contain.

The next visit to the graveyard, days later, he was still smiling. He greeted them all, almost inappropriately cheerful for a graveyard, and settled happily against the side of Mrs. Fischer’s headstone.

“Good morning, Mrs. Fischer!” he said brightly.

The surge of _panic_ that overcame him was so abrupt Patton flinched away from the grave, staring. Slowly, he moved a little ways away from it.

… He was being silly, he thought. Mrs. Fischer wasn’t _really_ there. None of them were. It was only Patton here, talking to himself, and whatever had made him so nervous just now didn’t- didn’t have anything to do with the stark capital letters of “Margareta Fischer” engraved in front of him.

But.

 _But._ Something was wrong. Patton knew suddenly, with absolute certainty, that something was terribly, _horribly_ wrong.

Slowly, he looked around, and there was nothing, nothing but an oppressive silence and the sense that something truly awful was about to happen, and Patton scrambled to his feet, terrified, wishing for the first time since he’d met Logan that he’d had the sense to wear some kind of anti-fae charm out of his house.

If only. If _only_ it had been a fae. A fearsome Unseelie, come to punish Patton for a slight he didn’t remember, even the petrifying pale woman who had cursed him in the first place.

Anything. Anything else, Patton would have wished for.

There was a dragging sound through the underbrush at the edge of the trees behind him, and Patton felt like he was moving through molasses, unable to run. All he could do was turn, shaking, to look at whatever was slowly coming toward him.

He couldn’t even scream. Screaming, that would be reasonable, that would be a _normal_ reaction, but Patton was frozen completely, silent, _silent,_ as the graves around him, as his own breathing, stopped completely.

The rabbit continued crawling toward him. Crawling, because it’s back legs weren’t working at all, two stiff dead weights dragging behind it. A huge, gaping, black hole of a wound had opened in its side, slick dark red just visible inside it. Flies buzzed ominously around it, the only sound in the deafening silence, and when the rabbit was close enough Patton saw the dangling, grotesque shape of its limp lower jaw, only partially attached.

His legs gave out.

Collapsing to the ground, bile rolling in his stomach, Patton couldn’t move away for the claw of guilt and couldn’t force himself to get any closer for the horror. He sat, frozen, as the rabbit made its way toward him.

It stopped, just out of reach. One eye had gone milky, but the other was still bright and brown and _looking,_ looking at him. That same look.

 _Help. Please help_.

The rabbit knew him. It remembered. Remembered that Patton had healed it.

_Don’t die._

Don’t, he’d said. And now it wouldn’t, would it? Never. Patton had never learned how to take back any one of the horrible things he’d done.

The rabbit knew he’d healed it, but it didn’t know that Patton had done _this_ to it.

It took minutes, too long, _too long,_ for Patton to force his way past the vice grip of silence around his throat, but he _had_ to. He had no choice. _Patton_ had done this, this horrible, unforgivable thing, but no matter how much self-hatred clogged his throat he knew he _could not_ leave the rabbit like this.

“Heal,” he choked, barely audibly.

It was faster this time, and what an awful blessing, what a cruel mercy, that Patton didn’t have to suffer through the same length it had been the first time.

Like a time-lapse in reverse, the rabbit’s skin pulled taut and new, its legs twitching back to life and its face reshaping into wholeness.

And then it shook itself, fur fluffing up, and hopped delicately toward Patton.

“No,” he said, regaining just enough control of his body to shuffle backwards, “No, no, bunny-”

But the bunny clearly didn’t understand English, or the wet, tearful tone of Patton’s voice, because it loped across the space between them and hopped right into Patton’s lap.

“No,” he repeated, eyes finally spilling over with the tears that had been frozen, “No, _please,_ you shouldn’t-”

It pressed its little body to his stomach.

“ _Please!”_ he wailed, and the rabbit only shook itself a little again and stayed right where it was. Like Patton was the one who needed comforting.

Patton had been wrong. So wrong, so dreadfully wrong – this wasn’t the first good deed, the first not-a-curse, the first _right thing._

This. This was the worst thing he’d ever done. The cruelest, most unspeakably _monstrous_ thing he _could_ have done. It was unforgivable.

And he had no idea how to undo it.

No way to undo it, no way to turn back the clock or take the words back. This was it - this bunny, who couldn’t die but could still _rot_ and _hurt_ and _suffer_. The bunny and Patton, the only thing that could heal the damage, even though he had done it in the first place.

“It’s okay,” lied Patton, voice barely a croak, not knowing if he was talking to the rabbit or himself.

Carefully, Patton made scoops of his hands and gently lifted the bunny into the cradle of his arms. Hot tears blurred his vision and slid down his face, splashing in the rabbit’s fur and leaving little dark spots behind.

“I’m so _sorry_ ,” he sobbed.

The bunny pressed it’s head to the flutter of Patton’s heartbeat, and all around them, the dead remained silent.

**Author's Note:**

> you can also find me over on [tumblr](tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors.tumblr.com) or in the [laoft discord server](https://discord.gg/ndH7AvgZYa)


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